In Northwest, a question of tax cuts or education
A small group of demonstrators stood on the steps of the Temple of Justice and in view of the Legislative Building as they advocated for more state spending on education prior to a hearing before the state Supreme Court.
CHIMACUM, Wash. — Thomas Ahearne, a Seattle lawyer, drove in his Ford pickup to this small town on the Olympic Peninsula a decade ago on an audacious mission. He planned to sue the state for violating its “paramount” constitutional responsibility, amply funding education for every child.
It was a long shot, but, if it worked, billions of dollars would flow, and the state’s 1 million schoolchildren would finally receive the education promised to them. One of the things Ahearne was hunting for in Chimacum was a brave soul willing to be the lawsuit’s public face.
Stephanie McCleary, a shy mother of two children, soon volunteered. She hardly imagined her instinctive decision to help her kids would put her at the center of a battle against the state’s most powerful players, uncovering a trail of inequities and injustices that have profound implications for this state and the rest of the nation.
The unlikely journey of Ahearne and McCleary began because Washington faced a startling crisis: Despite its image as the cutting-edge land of Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, and many other corporate icons, the state ranks near last place nationally in education categories such as per-pupil funding, class size, and college attendance.
Washington has long cited a paucity of tax revenues for such failings. Yet, at the same time, it gives away more money in corporate tax breaks than any other state aside from New York, which has nearly three times the population. It is the result of what some call a “war between the states” to lure companies with treasury-draining giveaways — a trend so strong that this state’s governor likened it in an interview to corporate “extortion.”
So the odds facing Ahearne and McCleary seemed extreme. More than a battle for a better school in little Chimacum and smaller classes for McCleary’s children, it set in motion a chain of events that would lead the state’s Supreme Court justices to find the government in contempt of court and all but plead with the politicians to meet their obligations to schoolchildren.
The clash would reverberate far behind Washington’s state lines. Here was a self-described progressive state with a Democratic governor and House, an electorate that last year voted to improve school funding, and many cash-flush corporations famished for qualified graduates. If a solution to gridlock couldn’t be found here, how could other states — or the other Washington, the nation’s capital — break out of their political stalemates?
‘Every single state is a potential victim of corporate extortion of jobs.’
It is a battle that only now, a decade later, is near to reaching its surprising conclusion.
But that is getting ahead of the story.
Fund-raisers for basic supplies
Stephanie McCleary was 13 years old in 1978 when the state Supreme Court ruled that Washington had failed to fulfill its constitutional mandate — the nation’s strongest — to pay for education. Its constitution says: “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.”
But the case dragged on and the ruling never directly benefited Stephanie. Only later did she realize A mother’s battle exposed inequities and injustices. A state is held in contempt of court. But corporations save their tax breaks and promised education dollars aren’t flowing. - The Boston Globe:
